Untitled
by Alexandri
Summary: Second season AU. At the end of POV, Joan and Adam talk and he doesn't end up crying over thoughts of his mother.
1. Chapter 1

I wrote this back in March and never posted it because I wanted to write more than just the two chapters I have. I may or may not still do that. It's kind of sad; it's a variation on how "POV" could have ended. Anyway, hope you guys like it. And what's up with not letting you put in separation lines anymore?

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

Even through the gentle patter of rain on the roof and the dull clack of the videotapes he's riffling through, Adam notices Joan quietly enter his shed. He casts surreptitious glances at her as she cautiously makes her way to his workbench.

She flashes an uneasy smile. "You can, uh, throw me out if you want…I'll understand."

Adam nods ever so slightly and removes his hands from the tape box. He carefully stuffs them in his pockets before changing his mind and placing them on the table, fingers splayed as if he's trying to ground himself. "I just…I don't understand," he says softly into the awkwardness. He wished he could say the awkwardness between them is new, but he knows that isn't the case. "How could you have thought…what you thought?" he asks lamely, not wanting to give voice to Joan's accusations.

She shrugs sheepishly as she sits on the stool opposite him. "Well, it just…" she pauses, brow furrowed as she picks at her cuticles, "seemed like…you were saying we were such a drag."

_That's it_, he thinks as his chest tightens briefly, painfully. He hunches deeper into his hoodie. "Things are changing _so _fast," he begins as he struggles to find the words he needs. "I…I didn't know who we were, and…and having a video of that? I don't know—I couldn't handle it." He stops though he knows it's not enough. There's so much more that needs to be said. He just doesn't know how to say it.

"Yeah," Joan murmurs and looks down at the table. Her hands twitch as if she wants to close the distance between their fingers but doesn't. Adam keeps his hands firmly in place. "Nothing's the same, is it? It…we aren't the way we used to be."

"No," Adam answers with a sad shake of his head. "Not for a while. Not since…" Not since she told him about talking to God.

Joan's eyes close and her lips press together to hold back…something. Adam watches, uncertain, waiting for some kind of clue on how to proceed. She hangs her head, gives it a little shake. Her hands curl into little balls across from his. "I needed you to believe me," she whispers, her voice clogged.

"I do believe you," Adam says, surprised that they're talking about the God thing at all. "I told you that but you haven't wanted to talk about it." He reaches over and lays his fingers on her trembling fist.

She pulls her hand back and Adam notices tears slipping down her cheeks. "Then. I needed you to believe me then."

Adam frowns, shakes his head in confusion. "I don't…"

"You don't believe _me_," Joan cried softly, raising wet eyes to his stunned face. "You believe the books you read over the summer. I needed you to believe _me_." Joan stops and draws a shaky breath. "I needed you to believe in me."

What is he suppose to say to that? Adam doesn't know how to answer this new accusation. He doesn't know if he _can_ defend himself. She has a point, doesn't she? He had researched her claim over the summer, but speaking to God…that was too spectacular for anyone to accept at face value, wasn't it? Even if it was Joan. And she'd been sick, laid down by a disease that caused delusions. How was he supposed to believe her after hearing, knowing _that_? He feels his fingers begin to curl against the wood, a thought nagging at him. He should have believed her because he always had before. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't…" know, empathize, understand? "realize. I should have."

Joan shrugs, her gaze focused on her balled hands. "I've been trying to hold on to what we were but that's not who we are anymore, is it?"

The sentence chills Adam and he's not entirely sure why, but he shakes his head anyway. "No, it's not." He thinks he should say more—something tells him he doesn't want to hear what she's going to say next—but remains quiet and waits.

"I think," she begins slowly, "I'm the problem. I don't…I don't seem to fit anymore."

This scares him more than her last comment, but what can he say against it? It's true—she _doesn't_ seem to fit anymore no matter how much they want to pretend otherwise.

Her gaze turns inward even as her eyes gradually rise to his face. "I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm not even the person the old me was becoming. I don't know how to get back to that. To her. I don't know how to get back to the me that trusts my parents or the me that trusts you."

Just like that, everything shifts to a place he never wanted to go. Somehow, Adam manages not to react too badly. Vaguely, he supposes the tears stinging his eyes and the sharp pain of his nails digging into his palms is expression enough. He knows he should say something, try to stop this from becoming worse but he can't even process it all, let alone act against it. Joan has always been a greater force than him anyway and he doubts he'd be able to stop her now even if he knew how. "What are you saying, Jane?"

Her head tilts to the side, apologetic yet defiant as if she suspects he already knows the answer and hates him for making her say it. "I think, maybe, we should just be…friends for a while," she finally says.

"You want to break up." It's not quite a question, not quite a statement.

"I don't want to," she answered, her voice pleading with him to understand as she draws her hands into her lap. "I just…I need to figure out who I am again."

Adam frowns, chews his lip as he considers her words. "And you have to do that without me?"

"I just need some distance, not from you so much as from _us_."

He feels like he's sinking. He feels guilty like he's broken Jane. That seems to be the gist of this conversation, isn't it? Not that it matters. Does it? He doesn't know what to think or how to feel, so he acquiesces—a short nod because he's not sure he can talk even if he knew what to say.

Joan nods and slides off her stool. She wraps her arms around her waist—something he's no longer allowed to do—before leaving as slowly and quietly as she came.

Adam merely sits, too stunned to do anything else. Then he carefully takes the box of cassettes and stows them back in their hiding place in the corner. He's not ready yet to confront the other unavailable woman in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

Idle chatter ebbs and flows around Joan as she picks at her roasted potatoes. She knows she's hungry—her stomach is protesting her disinterest—but the thought of taking a bite, chewing, and swallowing makes her tired. She gives the potatoes one last, half-hearted push and puts her fork down.

Vaguely, Joan realizes that Kevin has finished telling some boring story about playing golf with Dad and his new boss. A weird silence lingers when he's done. It grows, stretches, filters through Joan's preoccupied oblivion. She looks up. All eyes are trained on her. "What?" she asks, suddenly annoyed by the concern in their eyes, especially her mother's.

"We just wondered if you were all right," her mother says gently.

"You've been wondering that for two months now," she snapped angrily. "Don't you have something better to do?"

Her mother looks hurt. It surprises Joan to realize she doesn't care. After all, everybody hurts, right?

"You do not speak to your mother like that," her dad reprimands.

"Fine," Joan exclaims, shoving back from the table. She fully intends to go to her room, away from her family's prying eyes and heavy concern.

"You are not excused," her father says as her mom looks at her with imploring eyes.

"I understand you've been having a difficult time…" her mother begins.

_Oh, really?_ Joan thinks nastily. _Since when is Catholic school like crazy camp?_

"We just want to help you through whatever's bothering you," she finishes.

Joan rolls her eyes. "You want to know what would really help?" she asks with a huff. "If all of you would stop acting like I'm going to freak out at any moment!"

"You mean like you're doing right now?" Luke queries as he leans away from any potential physical retaliation.

With a scary glare, Joan grits out, "You'd be upset, too, if you and Grace broke up." Suddenly, the fight, the rage disappears and Joan slumps back into her chair. Today has been such an emotional roller coaster and she is drained. Her stomach growls at her and, pouting slightly, she spears a bite of potato and eats it.

"Oh, honey," Helen coos, laying a comforting hand on Joan's arm. "Adam's not going to break up with you."

Somehow, Joan manages not to flinch away from her mother's touch. She can't explain it but she wants to keep the hurt she's feeling. She wonders if she truly is crazy. "I broke up with Adam this afternoon." Her voice is completely listless.

"Why…" Kevin and Will begin simultaneously.

"I had to." She sighs. Tears are pricking her eyes. "I need to go to my room now," she murmurs.

Will nods. "Go on."

Even as Joan leaves the dining room, she feels the disquiet she's left behind.


	3. Chapter 3

Silence reigns as Rove drives. Grace doesn't quite know what to do or say and she doesn't like it. She also doesn't know what's going on with him in the first place and she doesn't like that either. In fact, life as she's known it has completely flipped on her recently and the only part of it that she likes is the part with Geek Boy. Even then, she doesn't like that she likes it because that way lies dependence and she's had enough people dump and/or bail on her up to and including Joan (not that she lets herself dwell on _that_ much) and she thinks that Luke letting her down that badly will be one hurt too much.

But right now she and Rove are trundling through Arcadia's outskirts and she's pretty sure that now is not the best time to ponder the current state of her own life. Not with Rove acting so weird—well, weirder than usual.

Everything about this little excursion with Rove is a bit off. For one thing, the two of them haven't hung out like actual friends since well before Joan turned up in their A. P. Chem class. For another thing, even after Joan turned up in their A. P. Chem class, she and Rove never really hung out on their own. The bond they'd had as kids hadn't triumphed over her drunken-mother-induced isolation or his suicidal-mother-induced reclusion and their inexplicable attraction to Joan's bizarre orbit wasn't enough to change that in the course of one school year. However, the oddest thing about all of this was that, for all that Adam liked her and would have gone just about anywhere she suggested when they were kids, he'd never actually liked the sewers. So his turning up on her porch wanting to go for a long overdue visit smells of all kinds of trouble to her.

Grace waits for him to park his dad's truck before saying anything. "You bring the paper?"

He smiles ruefully and shakes his head. "Not in the mood." With a tilt of his head and a brief smile, he heads for the sewer entrance.

Grace follows but now she is flat-out worried because the last time Rove wasn't in the mood for art (even if it was just paper boat-making) Joan had destroyed his sculpture. The last time before that was never. So this can only mean that something Very Bad has happened between her neurotic best friends.

The _Twilight Zone_-esque feel increases as the pungent sewer odor assails her and she wrinkles her nose in immediate disgust. Disturbed and frowning, Grace plods behind Rove wondering how she'd come to this point. Surely hanging with the geek hasn't made her weak. "Whatever," she mutters to herself and shrugs off her confused thoughts about her relationship. Whatever's going on now isn't about her and Rove is just as volatile in his own way as anyone else. She's going to need to focus on him right now.

They walk in silence, the old, long-forgotten sense of comfort and refuge slowly seeping into them. Grace sees Rove's shoulders relax, feels her own muscles unwind and begins to wonder if she were overreacting to the whole situation. The sluggish sloosh of the garbage-strewn water, the familiar echo of their footsteps and the soft squealing of rats wrap around Grace and, were it not for Rove's strange mood, the smile tugging at her lips would be much bigger.

The minutes slip by and the tunnel twists and turns; Grace doesn't know how long they've been down here or how far they've gone. She doesn't remember her way around anymore. She's sure Rove knows the way though. The thought keeps her calm; she does not like feeling lost.

"It's over."

His voice startles her and she turns confused eyes to his profile. "What's over?"

He shoves his hands deeper in his pockets, huddles in on himself as if to protect himself from the cold. If anything, it's very warm down here. She's glad she left her jacket in his truck; she's sure the smell never would have come out.

"Jane and me. It's over."

Blinking, she exclaims, "This didn't have anything to do with..."

"No," Rove interrupts quickly. "It's not because of Judith." He stops and shrugs, head tilted back, eyes closed. "It's because of me. I broke Jane."

"No," Grace disagrees. "No. Girardi was crazy long before you came along."

A tiny, reluctant smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. "She's not crazy," he whispers, but his voice is a bit lighter than before and Grace is glad to hear it.

Grace stares at him incredulously. It must the whole stupid in love thing because Joan Girardi is definitely crazy. It is a good, ultimately productive kind of crazy...but still crazy. But she'll play along; she's curious. "What is she if she's not crazy?"

Rove's head rolls toward her and he opens his eyes. Even in the dark, Grace can see the sadness in them. "Lost," he answers before lifting his head. "Broken. I broke her."

"You didn't break her, Rove," Grace assures him, awkwardly patting his shoulder.

He just shakes his head. "I helped."

Though she doesn't agree, Grace can't think of anything to say to change his mind.

In silence, Rove turns around and they head back to the truck. It's not until they are on the road that Grace thinks of something to say. "You know that Girardi's going to get through whatever's bothering her."

"Yeah," he responds half-heartedly.

Grace stifles her sigh. She knows there's nothing else she can say. It's going to be a long semester.


End file.
